This Is How To Finally Set Yourself Free

In 2017, my friend told me, “In order to be happy you have to close the doors that you are clinging to.” In 2019, that seed he planted finally blossomed, and I now understand exactly what he meant.

I spent years of my life in love with the same person, completely and utterly dedicated to our plan together. I couldn’t envision living any other life aside from the one we lived together. It’s funny how much we fall in love with something that has yet to happen. We fall so in love with our plans that when they change, most our pain comes from the loss of the plan rather than the person we cannot have that plan with.

I have gone through heartbreak before. You know, the messy kind. The kind where you use all of your own energy going through their social media and pray every night for their company. The kind that gives you pure anxiety and lingering false hope. This time, though, was different. This heartbreak didn’t bring unbearable feelings, nor did it bring any desire at all. This heartbreak brought freedom.

How do we set ourselves free? How do we become happy after we’ve lost part of our life and soul? How do we choose a new life rather than spend years mourning our last one?

We have to shut the doors that we are clinging to. We have to make room for the plan to change. We have to know that that wasn’t our door. We have to get rid of the belief that what once was is greater than what is or what will be.

“Everything is for you,” my dear friend once told me. We have to believe that. We have to truly let our bodies know that life is not happening to us but happening for us instead. We set ourselves free when we know that whatever is meant for us will always be for us.

We choose freedom over despair when we offer acceptance to places in our lives where we struggle giving it the most.

We choose happiness over sadness when we know that the doors we need to be going through are the doors that are effortlessly opening in front of us. This is why we have to trust the doors that open for us, and we especially have to trust the timing of them.

We are free when we give life permission to move. We are happy when we commit to moving along with it.

We have to close the doors we are clinging to; we have to make space for change. We have to have a higher trust that this all works for our greater good. We have to chase freedom, not by outrunning everything that has happened to us or what we hoped would, but by refusing to let those things be the only things that happen to us.

You look back and you just feel stupid.
You can’t forgive yourself for falling
or believing all the lies.
You reread every text.
You relive every memory.
And it all starts making sense —he never wanted love.
He only wanted attention.
He only wanted validation.

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